Jet Pack Abuse and Soft Kill Ceilings

Ever
since the introduction of armor abilities with Halo: Reach, there has
been a steady flow of criticism regarding Bungie's decision to include
the jet pack perhaps more than any other armor ability. This article
will begin to explore the issues that the jet pack has raised, some
exclusively unique among the armor abilities, and what they mean for the
forger. We will explore the issues so that you, the forger, can make a
more informed decision as to how you want to proceed with your own forge
works.

When
forging any map, a forger must decide how the game type will interact
with the map design decisions they make and how much impact those
interactions will effect the game play. For example, for my map Flight
Deck, I had to customize each game type to give each player a start with
DMR and AR, since a pistol (default weapon start) was pretty useless on
a large map like an aircraft carrier. If this map were to be played
with standard MM game types, then it would not play as well.

Armor Abilities & Load Outs

So
it is with load outs. While a forger can choose not to include an armor
ability on the map, armor abilities can make their way onto the map
through the game type's load out selections. This means that if a
particular armor ability will break the map, then a game type variant
can break the map and there is nothing that can be done about it while
in the forge. There are no forge settings or tools that will block an
armor ability introduced by the game type load outs.

This
leads us to discuss the jet pack armor ability. The jet pack has
developed the greatest reputation as a hated armor ability added with
Halo: Reach. Many players complain that players abuse the map with the
help of their jet packs - that they get to places where no one else can
get to (because a jet pack is required to get there) and this gives them
special - read that "abusive" - positions on the map to exploit. This
is called Jet Pack Abuse. They complain that the map allows this abuse, but the abuse is enabled by the jet pack itself.

If a
map literally has a ceiling through out and a jet pack is pretty
useless, then the forger need not think much about jet pack abuse on his
map. But the vast majority of maps have no structural ceiling. The rest
of this article will focus on jet pack abuse on maps that are typically
open to the sky and have high places that a jet packer would have
exclusive access to. These are the extreme situations a forger creates
for himself, and can give us a healthy discussion on the topic.

The Purpose Of Armor Abilities

Armor
abilities are suppose to enhance game play, not break it or
fundamentally alter it. After all, Bungie clearly wanted to make game
play better, not worse, when they published Halo: Reach. (I am not
arguing that they succeeded.) So with that assumption as our foundation,
what can we say about jet packs and their intended role on any map?

We
can look at sprint, evade, and armor lock - they enhance a player's
running performance, evading performance, and damage resistance
performance. We can likewise assume that the intended performance
enhancement from a jet pack was the ability to reach a higher path or
position on a map without the need to detour and use the stairs like
everyone else; and to achieve a tactical advantage with altitude, much
as sprint offers a tactical advantage of reaching cover faster, or armor
lock buys time for allies to come to one's aid, etc

MrGreen's Rule On Armor Abilities

My
rule about any armor ability, but especially jet packs: A player with
any armor ability must not be able to access portions of a map that
would otherwise be out of reach to the player, lest the armor ability
fundamentally alters the playability of the map.

This rule then leads us to the obvious question, What
does a forger do if they have a spire like structure with no way up
other than a jet pack, because the forger doesn't want anyone to go up
to its top? Of course, the answer is that the map must prevent a jet packer from flying up to the top and camp. But how?

The Problem Defined

Typically,
a tall structure (a spire is just one example that came to mind) has an
element of aesthetics to it that the forger doesn't want to alter just
to prevent a jet packer from camping on top. So the only other choice is
to create an invisible obstacle. This allows the aesthetics to remain
untouched, while preventing a jet packer from reaching the top.

One
way to achieve this is to use the already invisible barrier high off
the ground. If the spire or tall structure were constructed to extend
upward past this barrier, then the forger would rely on this natural
invisible ceiling and need not do any more work. But the maps that can
actually take advantage of this are slim to none. To actually do this,
the ground level of the map must be raised substantially.

The
most typical approach is to use the Soft Kill Boundary. Typically the
Soft Kill Boundary is used to cover the top of a structure where a jet
packer may be able to reach so that they are discouraged or even prevent
from reaching. But this approach opens another question altogether
about forging maps. Is the use of Soft Kill Boundaries to make camping
locations accessible only to jet packers a valid design decision?

Soft Kill Boundary Abuse

Too
often, Soft Kill Boundaries are used as cheap band-aide like fixes for
maps that were poorly designed to begin with. Instead of going back to
the foundation and correcting the design errors, a forger just pulls out
a Soft Kill Boundary, and BAM, the problem appears fixed. Unwittingly,
they can introduce new, hidden problems.

As a
rule, you do not want to just scatter Soft Kill Boundaries everywhere
on a map to "close off" those undesirable areas from game play. Consider
what would happen in an objective game where a player carrying the
objective unwittingly enters a Soft Kill Boundary - when they
intuitively are lead to think they are on the playing field. Even if the
player has a 10 second warning, the objective resets immediately
without warning. This would cause confusion and frustration to the
players - not a good thing!

Since using Soft Kill Boundaries over areas that are accessible only to
jet packers, this consideration would never apply. A person would not
intuitively think they are on a playable area if they require a jet pack
to access it. And with very few exceptions (e.g., speedpile), you
cannot carry an objective when using a jet pack anyway.

The Ceiling Solution

Another
approach would be to create a ceiling that defines the upper limit of
the playable area. This curbs jet pack abuse quite a bit, but in many
cases it raises confusion by jet packers who don't see any opportunities
to abuse the map with their jet packs to begin with.

Let's
say your spire's top is 30 meters from the ground. A jet packer could
fly up that far. Create a ceiling of 25 meters, and they get the hint
before they clear the edge. But this ceiling then becomes an impediment
to the jet pack through out the map, which they would argue is
unnecessary for most areas of the map.

Let's
consider the forger's perspective on this last point. A forger defines
the playable area. This includes all borders, even the ceiling.
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with this concept, but others do.

Conclusion

Jet packs are a fact of Reach. As a forger, your ability to avoid them
is limited to degrees. For example, even if 343i decides that bubble
shields are not in the load out for Team Objective today, tomorrow they
may be back in. You need to consider this when you design your map if
you have hopes of getting it into match making some day.

There
are different approaches to the problem, each with their own draw backs
if not carefully thought out. But in the end, a map that prevents abuse
is a happy map.